


A Modest Proposal

by missmariie



Series: Retail Detail [7]
Category: Castle
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Retail, Flirting, Humor, M/M, Weird Literary References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-24
Updated: 2015-08-24
Packaged: 2018-04-17 00:43:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4646043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missmariie/pseuds/missmariie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Our heroes have lunch in the home of the worlds least competent KFC.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Modest Proposal

**Author's Note:**

> Second last fic in this verse! Yay! I've finished the rough draft of the final one too.
> 
> I feel like you really had to have read Common Phallacies to get everything that's going on here. It's three fics earlier in the series. 
> 
> Hope everyone likes it!

“Hey Javi!” Kevin called out as he slid the last bolt on the roller door into place.

Rick trailed behind him as he wandered over to where Javier stood in the middle of the mall, digging through his pockets. 

“Yo!” Javier greeted them, grinning broadly at Kevin and nodding at Rick. 

Rick saluted him cheerfully. 

“Espo!” called Kate from where she was fiddling with the lock at Nike. She jiggled it for a moment before jogging over towards them. 

Kevin had met her a few times when he was meeting up with Javier for lunch. She seemed nice, in a gruff sort of way. 

“You’ll want the keys Esposito. They’re kind of important for things like opening the store.” 

She dropped them into Javier’s waiting fingers with a roll of her eyes. 

“Aww, shucks Beckett. You lookin’ out for me now?” Javier said, jostling her with his elbow. 

“Wait – you guys call each other by your last names?” Rick butted in, his face lighting up. 

“Yeah.” Javier said, shrugging. 

Kevin and Rick looked at each other. 

“I think it’s a _sports people_ thing.” Kevin told him. 

Rick grinned and turned towards Kate. 

“Call me Castle.” he told her smoothly, extending a hand. 

She took it cautiously. 

“Beckett.” Kate responded in kind. 

“Your last name is _Rodgers_.” Kevin reminded Castle, folding his arms across his chest. 

“ _Castle_ is my pen name.” Rick replied airily. 

“You have a pen name?” Kate asked. 

Javier sighed audibly. 

“Course he does.” 

 

All four of them elected to have dinner together in the mall. After a few minutes of polite squabbling over what to get, they decided they’d each secure their food and reconvene at an ugly grey table. 

Kevin and Javier were sharing a large plate of fries and nuggets and Rick was chomping away shamelessly on a Bacon Donut Burger by the time Kate returned to the table with a bagel.

She looked a little frazzled. 

“What? Did you have to hunt that thing down the length of the Grand Canyon?” Javier teased her, cocking a sceptical eyebrow at her plate. 

“KFC was out of lettuce.” she muttered sourly, biting into her food. 

Kevin and Rick blinked at her. 

Javier squinted suspiciously at the KFC sign and shook his head. 

“Lettuce.” Kevin echoed, not completely sure that she wasn’t pulling his leg. 

“There’s lettuce in almost everything they sell.” grumbled Kate, snatching a piece of the aforementioned vegetable viciously out of her bagel, “I can’t think of anything weirder to run out of.” 

Javier snorted.

“I can.” 

“Imagine if they ran out of chicken.” Kevin supplied, mopping up a puddle of ketchup with his fry. 

“Nah, they’d just fry up their laziest employee instead.” Javier suggested seriously. 

“Now there’s a modest proposal.” said Rick.

Kate snorted. 

“Well, next time our stock boxes are running late, I’ll skin you to make scarves.” Kevin threatened Rick gleefully. 

Rick plucked a clean fork off the table and used it to check himself out.

“Well, I _am_ much prettier than those denim crop tops we got in the other day.”

“So what’s with the pen name?” Javier asked Rick, chewing slowly on the end of a fry. 

“I’m a mystery writer.” Rick announced, grinning and leaning back in his chair. 

“Really?” Kate replied, smirking, “Because I heard that the mystery is how you keep your job.” 

Rick smiled at her, and ignored the comment entirely. 

“I write a weekly story for a magazine. It’s a paying gig and everything.” 

“Very impressive.” Kate told him, patting his hand patronisingly. 

Rick narrowed his eyes at her. 

“Maybe I’ll write my next mystery about a smart, sexy Nike employee who they find dead in a stock box.” 

“I’m flattered.” said Javier, plucking a fry out of Kevin’s fingers. 

Kate cocked an eyebrow at Javier. She leant across the table to make eye contact with Rick. 

“Hey Rick, are you straight?” she asked without preamble. 

Kevin felt Javier twitch slightly. 

Rick turned the full wattage of his smile on Kate as she lifted her foot onto the bench and rubbed at her shin gingerly. 

“Sure am!” 

 

Kevin slumped over the table and stretched his hands out carefully, slowly curling his fingers around the final fry just as Javier reached for it. 

“Hey.” complained Javier, shuffling himself a little further from Rick and Kate’s end of the table where the battle raged on and settling himself down just slightly too close to Kevin to be entirely friendly. 

Either that or he had no sense of personal space. 

And Kevin was pretty sure Javier’s personal bubble was a lot bigger than his was. 

So that had to be a good sign, right? 

“Do you want to come to something really boring?” asked Kevin, emboldened, “I’ll be there, and there’ll be a heap of food.”

Javier chuckled and surreptitiously nudged their empty lunch container onto Rick’s corner of the table. 

“Sounds alright.” 

They smiled stupidly at each other for a moment. Kevin was distantly aware of Kate flinging a hair tie at Rick. 

“One of my cousins is having a birthday party.” he explained. “There’ll be more Ryans in one place than is probably wise, but it’s on a big property so we can probably sneak away from my drunken uncles and find somewhere cool to hang out.” 

“Bro, you know you’re only meant to have one drunken uncle, right?” 

“Irish Catholics.” Kevin told him, ducking under one of Rick’s more expansive gestures. “We specialise in both multiplying _and_ alcoholism.”

Javier snorted. 

“So long as I can drive, I’m there.”

“Sure.” Kevin agreed easily. 

He estimated that once they were at the party it would take them all of ten minutes to find some kind of bolt hole. After that, he’d have Javier Esposito all to himself. This was a great plan. 

You know, provided Javier survived that first ten minutes with his family.


End file.
